The Galaxy Mega is a big phone. This update, on the other hand, is somewhat modest. Still, for those rocking a Galaxy Mega it's a big enough deal. The NJ1 update adds a few new calling features as well as some patches for Android security vulnerabilities.

The G3 is LG's current flagship phone, but Sprint is pushing out an over-the-air update that shows some love to 2013's model, the G2, instead. This special delivery will bring in a number of general enhancements that some users may be happy to see. HD Voice is seeing improvements, and there are some LTE-related changes as well. These are joined by a security patch fixing something that's unspecified in the change log.

The Sharp Aquos Crystal is very close to being an Android nerd's dream device. It has virtually no bezel (except on the bottom) and comes with a stock version of Android 4.4.2. It looks unlike anything else on the market in the US today, and many Sprint customers will no doubt be happy to pick one up from the carrier starting today at $239.99 off-contract. People who prefer to walk out without putting any money down can get the phone for $10 a month.

HTC has detailed an over-the-air update for the Sprint version of the One M7 that rolls out what the company refers to as "Google security fixes." This is vague in the usual carrier-provided-update-way, but folks over in the Sprint Community have reported some more specific changes. Users who install this update should no longer see the annoying "Smith Disabled" notification that appears after every reboot. The default flashlight app has apparently also been replaced by an LED flash app.

The Nexus 6 looks to be Google's most widely-released phone ever, at least in the context of United States carriers. While the company has taken an "unlocked first" approach to carrier partnerships since the ill-fated Verizon Galaxy Nexus, it has offered at least some of the traditional phone sales on the Nexus 5. For the new Motorola Nexus 6, every major American carrier will have a phone option, though whether that means there's one phone that will work with all or there will be multiple versions, we can't say at the moment.

T-Mobile will continue to go it alone in the wilds of the US wireless industry after French telecom Iliad has announced it is dropping plans to buy the carrier from parent company Deutsche Telekom. Iliad's leadership had imposed a deadline of mid-October to decide whether to increase its previously rejected offer of $15 billion for a 56.6% stake in the Uncarrier. That's not happening, so the dream is dead.

Iliad first announced the offer as Sprint was reportedly in the late stages of acquisition talks with T-Mobile.

We often see carriers trickle out updates to one device on any given day, but today Sprint is pushing out a new firmware upgrade to two. These lucky handsets are the Samsung Galaxy Mega and the HTC EVO 4G LTE. Their change logs don't mirror each other, but one item is the same. It's not a particularly exciting one, but it's something.

The Galaxy Mega is one huge phone, and since it has already received KitKat, this update isn't huge enough to match.

Normally the kind of customer who buys a "rugged" phone like the Hydro VIBE isn't all that concerned with having the latest and greatest in software - or at least that seems to be the attitude of the carriers and manufacturers, who don't seem very concerned themselves. Perhaps that's why Sprint and Kyocera launched the phone with Android 4.3 back in May, despite the fact that 4.4 had already been available for seven months.

Samsung has been sending the somewhat overdue Android 4.4.4 update to its flagship devices for the last few weeks, and according to this support page, it's now the Sprint Galaxy S5's turn. The Sprint CDMA edition of the S5 should be receiving the latest stable build of Android now, though we haven't actually found any users who are getting it this morning. Given the way that US carriers tend to stagger the rollouts for just about everything, that isn't all that surprising.

Sometimes watching American cell phone carriers is like observing a line of monkeys - see the whole JUMP/EDGE/NEXT/whatever Sprint calls their interest-free phone financing saga. Now it's come again, this time after AT&T announced a limited promotion that doubled the data on some of its shared family plans. Verizon has matched their prices with a MORE Everything promotion that starts tomorrow, October 2nd. For the same $130 price that AT&T is offering, pre-fees, Verizon is giving family plan users 30GB of data.